[Dcphp-dev] Fair market value for PHP freelance work?

[Conrad Decker]

This was actually what I was thinking as well. We've recently started 
working with a framework that significantly reduces the amount of code 
that we write per application now. This framework, when originally 
developed, could probably be estimated by the lines of code. But there's 
no way to accurately estimate the cost of a project now based on the 
lines of code that will be written. Unless you count the code that was 
already written for the framework...and then, it's likely that the lines 
of code that went into the framework are significantly higher as it 
wasn't written specifically for that application and probably has 
numerous unused objects.

Does that even make sense? :-)

*......................................................*
*Conrad Decker,* * President*
*CDev * *Technologies *
*904.716.3298* *||* *cdevtechnologies.com*


Keith Casey wrote:
> On 3/13/07, M Yilmaz <mehmety at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I am neutral on the matter, and I already put in the disclaimers, but 
>> I want
>> to explore the topic here.  What makes it a poor estimate?  I think I am
>> missing your point Casey.
>
> This one has always felt odd for me, but I (just now) put my finger on
> it.  LOC works when you have straight-procedural code.  Each and every
> line does some sort of necessary action in order and therefore each
> and every line has to exist and work in order for the next one.
>
> Once you get into anything OO, you lose much of this.  If you have a
> simple "Class B extends Class A" and "Class C extends Class A"
> heirarchy, if you refactor a method from each B and C and promote it
> to A, you've reduced the overall LOC.  BUT you've probably made the
> system simpler to maintain for you or the next guy who has to update
> it.  There are estimates that anywhere from 50-95% of the cost of a
> piece of software is felt *after* it is "complete".
>
> By doing it "right" the first time around (or shortly thereafter by
> refactoring), there is a possibility to reduce this later and make the
> job easier for the next guy.
>
>> yeilds about 28.5 Hours.  How many hours did you charge for development?
>> How close is that an estimate to the development you performed?
>
> Actually, it was a per-site fee.... and more than 28.5*rate.  ;)
>
> keith
>
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